Historically, systems capable of generating large volumes of automated calls have differed in hardware and software from those systems used to bridge participants on an audio teleconference. In addition, the hardware and software required to manage an audio teleconference are often priced an order of magnitude or more above the cost of hardware and software used to generate large volumes of automated calls on a per-phone-line basis.
Furthermore, the limited capacity of a typical audio conferencing bridge prevents deploying the requisite number of phone lines to effectively make the many outbound calls required to achieve a large sized audio teleconference (10-100,000 conferees).
Audio conferencing bridges also have heretofore consisted of a single device, or in some cases a series of tightly-interconnected devices which must be co-located in the same facility. Currently available conference bridges can not incorporate equipment located in geographically disparate locations in the same manner as those co-located in the same facility. Thus, presently available conferencing bridges are only capable of handling a few hundred conferees; In instances where more conferees than the limit are required, bridges must be either physically located in the same location, or, if they are in disparate locations must be controlled separately and have voice paths joined together by a manual process, resulting in loss of quality and cumbersome dispersed control of the conference by multiple operators who must be extensively trained in the management of multiple conference bridges.
Typical smaller teleconferences provide for each conference participant to listen to other participants, and provide voice input to the conference. Such typical smaller teleconferences thus require approximately twice the hardware resources of a large “listen only” conference. Presently available conferencing bridges capable of allowing large calls of multiple thousand participants do not provide for the placement of some or all conference participants into an initial listen-only mode which may be converted upon request to a full two-way participation mode under the control of the teleconference operator.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems discussed above.